Swallow, Starving Faithful | ONC 2020

8. NOSOTRAS ODIÁBAMOS A LA GENTE INOCENTE.

I stay with Bernadette. I stay there for a whole day. For a whole day, we stay together in the ombú tree, holding each other close. It is an experience. I enjoy it. The Kind Man is too far away to reach out and touch and I honestly feel quite deplorable that I have not attended mass for the next morning in a row. It makes sense to bury myself in the many layers she wears, and enjoy the feeling of her arms around me because they distract me from my other, less-pressing thoughts. I still want to touch her face; please, I do want to. We have fostered his strange consistency of lust and passion over however many hours this has been. 

And I don't want her to die, not this person I've bonded with so intimately, not her, not Bernadette. We spend long periods exchanging very little conversation, though when I do open my mouth, it is my begging and pleading to stop her from dying. There has to be another solution, I reason, to escape this Juan situation and return back to Buenos Aires.
Eventually, Bernadette finally says, "I could run away."

I waste no time asking, "why don't you?"

"It isn't that simple, yeah? Because if I run back to Buenos Aires, Juan will just follow me. I need to sort things out with him."

"Sort things out?"

"Yeah. I don't want to. He could attack me. Or call the police on me, just out of spite, and that's it, I'd be in an asylum. It's really not worth it. I'd rather die."

"Then how will you do it?"

"I'll go seek him out. I might be able to argue with him and make him stay away from me."

"Will you really?"

"I'll try. I don't know what he'll do."

"Right, okay," I murmur, still confused that Bernadette's abusive boyfriend could be here, in Lová. What is he doing? Have I seen him already? "I just don't want you to hang yourself. You were joking about that, weren't you?"

"Of course I wasn't."

"Well... you know... I really don't want you to die."

"I know you don't. So, there's something I need from you."

"From me?" I feel my face growing hot, because no one ever needs anything from me. "What do you need?"

"I want you to run away with me."

"I can't do that," I say automatically. 

"Why? Don't you trust me?"

There are so many reasons I can't leave the one place I've ever known, so many, so many all bubbling to the surface that I try to arrange in words. "I'm sorry. I've been here all my life, and it's all I really understand. Everything outside terrifies me. If I were to leave, I honestly think I'd fall apart."

"You tell yourself these fucking lies." Bernadette glares at me through the root-like hair once again strangling her face. "What's going to happen if you stay here? Even if the bullying's stopped, you aren't happy. You're sad as shit."

"Am I?"

"Yeah. I see right through you. Run away."

"But... my father..."

"Eh? The hairy guy?"

"No, my real father. He may visit soon, or something..."

"Who the fuck is your real father?"

"It doesn't matter, actually. Sorry. Bernadette, I don't know if I can run away. I really don't. But I want you to run away and get back to your child. That's it. That's all I want."